Chile Forum

Chile Forum in English for Gringos, Expatriates, and Travelers to Exchange Ideas and Information about Chile, South America. For more than a decade, the Chile Forum has been the center for expats to share their collective knowledge and experience about living in Chile. The Chile Forum is a free community service brought to you by the law office of Spencer Global.

You could tell that some of the people in the convoy seemed to have never driven on snow and ice before. I didn't want to tell the driver (a man who was older than one) to slow down, so I just told him that the people ahead were driving too fast and hoped he'd take the hint. About a minute after that the car in front lost control and skidded to the right a metre or two and that was a relief since it made my driver slow down and eventually everyone slowed down. When we stopped and got out to walk around the road was almost like an ice rink.

In Eastern Europe you must change your tires in winter to the ones with metal spikes. Driving on ice is a difficult skill to learn. Though not only on ice: I've seen people from Southern California sharing screenshots of Waze maps full of car crashes after a light rain.

I think i was in my 20's before i learned to drive on clean dry pavement coming from the northern u.s. I use to find myself over compensating in the spring for lack of ice on the road. I nearly rolled my car once, after all the ice melted off overnight, and came in to a corner to discover i suddendly had way too much traction.

That drive up to the ski resorts outside of santiago on a saturday morning can interesting and scarry with all the satiago drivers that have trouble on a wet road let alone ice.

We have recently had a round of ice the last couple of weeks down south. Just north of pourto varas on route 5, a couple of weeks ago a tractor trailor lost control on a corner, crashed through the gaurd rails, jumped the medium, and landed in the on coming lane on its side. You could see from the marks, he hit that ice, and did everything you should never do on ice, but with a 18 wheeler. Once he touched his breaks, he was not driving. The trailer behind him was driving.

In fact, now that think about it, i would tell a new driver or a driver with no experience driving on ice, practice driving your car on a nice day without using your breaks. Just get a feal for your car's momentum to slow your car, and turn. The first thing that will be obvious is you need to put a lot more distance between you and the vehical in front of you, and take your foot off the gas a lot earlier and overall planning your deexcelleration much esrlier. Not a replacement for experience driving on ice (a lot more to it), but a place to start getting a feal for the problem.

Is there mad drivers there in Chile endangering other drivers lives? I have seen "road raged drivers" going for each other's throat by brake-testing to each other. Seen a young teenager looking girl tailgating on an older driver the other day on freeway 680 southbound. The elder driver either does not see her almost hitting his rear bumper or just ignoring her intention. Then after following the pursued car she makes sudden lane change then cuts right in on the elder driver and hit the brakes.! The elder driver reacts by swerving to almost hitting the center divider. Then I see this young driver giving him the middle finger but then all hell broke loose. Now this elder driver hit the throttle and re-pass her car and barges right in her lane then hit the breaks hard! I see these incidents very often in California freeways..

well it sounds like it might be easier to get the license in Spain and use it in Chile. Why am I not surprised?

Yeah. But to get ahold of Spain's DL, one should become EU member countries citizen/permanent resident first and that is almost nearly impossible or, it will take a long,long time. So it is easier to go for Chilean octavo basico grading or provide graduation cerificate of your own country..Then comes to think of, why is it that in civilised countries, it is never an issue to providing educational proof to get a DL?

yeah i definitely wouldn’t recommend becoming a spanish resident and getting a spanish DL, unless you actually live there already. Not that I think anyone would do that. But I am struggling to decide whether Spanish bureaucracy is worse than or equally bad as the Chilean equivalent. And that’s for someone who is an EU citizen.

yeah i definitely wouldn’t recommend becoming a spanish resident and getting a spanish DL, unless you actually live there already. Not that I think anyone would do that. But I am struggling to decide whether Spanish bureaucracy is worse than or equally bad as the Chilean equivalent. And that’s for someone who is an EU citizen.

A Chilean friend who lived in France said that Chilean bureaucracy is nothing compared to French.

After that I had to move an object with a pencil in the end to follow a certain line or shape testing I have a steady hand and then some optical tests of looking through an eye piece into a thing that was like a telescope or binoculars with some letters in it. It was like a mini version of going to the opticians. Then finally the last part was talking to a doctor and answering some questions (I can't remember what).

Thanks for the excellent post. I hate to beat a dead horse, but anytime I hear of someone taking a Chile driving test, I have to find out if there was a color vision exam administered. Do you recall any color vision test? Thanks again for great post.

After that I had to move an object with a pencil in the end to follow a certain line or shape testing I have a steady hand and then some optical tests of looking through an eye piece into a thing that was like a telescope or binoculars with some letters in it. It was like a mini version of going to the opticians. Then finally the last part was talking to a doctor and answering some questions (I can't remember what).

Thanks for the excellent post. I hate to beat a dead horse, but anytime I hear of someone taking a Chile driving test, I have to find out if there was a color vision exam administered. Do you recall any color vision test? Thanks again for great post.

That thing where you have to press the pedal to test your reaction time has the red and green lights, if I remember correctly?

There are lights (be red and/or green lights) involved in the braking things but that is not a colour vision test and people with colour blindness would still be able to to that test. I don't recall any colour blindness part of the test.

After that I had to move an object with a pencil in the end to follow a certain line or shape testing I have a steady hand and then some optical tests of looking through an eye piece into a thing that was like a telescope or binoculars with some letters in it. It was like a mini version of going to the opticians. Then finally the last part was talking to a doctor and answering some questions (I can't remember what).

Thanks for the excellent post. I hate to beat a dead horse, but anytime I hear of someone taking a Chile driving test, I have to find out if there was a color vision exam administered. Do you recall any color vision test? Thanks again for great post.

I just renewed my license last week and as part of the vision test there was a color vision exam / question or two. You had to name 3-4 colours and some of the objects in other parts of the visual exam would probably be difficult to identify if you are color blind

Thank you AT46, Britkid, Scandinavian and Frozen North, your comments regarding the color vision tests have been helpful to me. It seems, oddly enough, that the tests may vary considerably. I had a friend who recently took the exam, and I asked him to pay attention to the test, specifically for color vision. He only recalled having to identify the colors of some animals. My condition causes me troubles with the Isahura plate test examination. I can normally distinguish traffic signal colors (although have had problems with the completely non standard devices used by flaggers in Chile).
Unfortunately for me, requirements in the United States regarding physical examination requirements for commercial truck drivers, have made it impossible to pass the color vision test. I have sadly surrendered my commercial driver's license after over 30 years of driving without an in duty accident.
I believe that my "disability" actually forced me to be more aware of conditions on the road without relying on the visual stimulation of color changes on traffic signals.
I will probably wait until my hand is forced, to take the test, and I am thankful that apparently the Ishaura test is not applied. Thank you all again.